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AND  THEN  CAME  THE  STORM 

BY 
HENRY  H.  HARPER 


\V\E-UNIVERS//j 


<&UIBRARY0/.        -otf-UBRARYtf/: 

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AND  THEN  CAME  THE  STORM 
BY  H.  H.  HARPER 

I  had  written  a  few  books  and  biographical 
essays,  not  because  I  needed  the  meager  finan- 
cial return  they  brought  me,  for  I  had  a  com- 
fortable income  from  investments.  Having 
received  a  long  delayed  inheritance  from  my 
mother's  estate  in  Virginia,  I  retired  from  ac- 
tive business  early  in  life  and  lived  comfortably 
—  even  luxuriously  —  on  a  large  country  es- 
tate stocked  with  cattle,  horses,  chickens  and  a 
large  orchard.  Eventually  I  had  discovered  that 
after  an  active  life,  "Ipafing"  is  not  the  happy- 
go-lucky  state  that  it  is  cracked  up  to  be;  so  I 
took  up  writing  and  farming  as  an  occupational 
pastime. 

A  book  collector  in  a  large  mid-western  city 
who  had  read  one  of  my  books,  wrote  asking  if 
I  would  inscribe  the  volume  for  him,  which  I 
was  glad  to  do,  without  realizing  what  an  im- 
portant link  this  proved  to  be  in  the  chain  of 
future  events.  He  took  great  pride  in  owning 
nearly  a  hundred  thousand  volumes  —  the 


largest  collection  of  inscribed  books  in  this 
country.  We  corresponded  for  some  time  and  I 
was  the  means  of  procuring  for  him  a  number 
of  scarce  items  he  prized  very  highly.  One  day 
I  received  a  letter  from  him  saying  that  his 
daughter  was  on  her  way  to  Boston  to  visit  the 
family  of  an  old  college-mate  of  his,  and  asked 
if  I  would  kindly  look  her  up  and  show  her 
some  of  the  "interesting  sights  of  the  cultural 
metropolis."  I  thought  to  myself,  this  is  prob- 
ably some  bespectacled,  bookish  dame,  but  see- 
ing it  was  about  Christmas-time,  when  she 
would  be  away  from  the  holiday  festivities  at 
home,  I  didn't  want  to  be  accused  of  being  a 
cold-footed,  inhospitable  Bostonian,  so  I  de- 
cided to  phone,  ask  her  to  lunch  with  me  and 
give  her  the  "once-over."  When  she  answered 
the  call  I  told  her  of  her  father's  letter  and  in- 
vited her  to  meet  me  in  the  library  at  the  Hotel 
Touraine. 

"Just  a  moment,  please,"  she  said,  then  after 
a  pause  of  a  minute  or  so,  she  answered,  "Yes, 
thank  you,  I  shall  be  happy  to  meet  you." 

"Thank  you,"  I  said,  "if  you  are  as  charm- 
ing as  your  cheery  musical  voice,  our  happiness 
will  be  mutual." 

When  I  knew  her  better  she  told  me  that, 
suspecting  me  to  be  some  bald-headed,  be- 
whiskered  bookworm  that  her  daddy  had  struck 


up  an  epistolary  acquaintance  with,  before  giv- 
ing her  answer  she  consulted  her  hostess,  who 
advised  her  there  could  be  no  great  risk  in  tak- 
ing a  chance  to  "look  him  over." 

When  she  met  me  at  the  hotel  I  was  grati- 
fied to  find  that  she  was  young,  beautiful  and 
vivacious.  In  the  library,  before  going  in  to 
lunch,  I  learned  from  her  that  after  graduating 
from  one  of  New  York's  finishing  schools  she 
had  recently  returned  from  a  trip  around  the 
world  with  her  parents.  Soon  after  we  were 
seated  at  the  table  she  cupped  her  chin  in  her 
palms  and  looked  across  at  me  appraisingly. 
"Now  tell  me  all  about  yourself,"  she  began. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "If  you  happen  to  have  read 
the  book  I  inscribed  for  your  father,  there  isn't 
much  else  to  tell." 

She  dropped  her  hands  and  stared  at  me, 
wide-eyed.  "Don't  tell  me  that  poor  little  moth- 
erless Bob  Hardwick  was  anything  but  a  fig- 
ment of  your  imagination!" 

"It's  the  gospel  truth,"  I  said.  "But  if  I  re- 
member correctly  there  was  a  little  episode  I 
forgot  to  mention  in  the  book.  One  day,  when  I 
was  seven  years  old,  my  father  lashed  me  fur- 
iously with  a  blacksnake  whip  for  some  mis- 
demeanor of  which  I  was  not  guilty.  The  in- 
justice of  it  made  me  so  mad  that  I  tried  to 
figure  out  how  to  get  even  with  him.  I  had 

t  3  ] 


heard  him  repeat  the  proverb,  'An  eye  for  an 
eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,'  and  on  that  basis 
I  figured  that  he  deserved  to  lose  something 
very  dear  to  him.  So  I  hit  upon  the  idea  of  do- 
ing away  with  his  brand  new  Sunday  hat.  Ac- 
cordingly, one  day  when  he  was  away  I  got  the 
hat  out,  put  a  brick  in  it  and  dropped  it  into 
the  well.  I  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that 
to  his  dying  day  he  worried  about  what  became 
of  that  hat." 

She  laughed  and  shook  her  head.  "All  I  can 
say  is,  to  have  survived  those  childhood  ordeals 
you  must  have  been  under  the  guardian  care  of 
your  mother's  spirit." 

"Yes,  I  believe  that.  And  after  all,  now  that 
it's  all  over  I'm  not  sorry  it  happened  that  way. 
Those  childhood  experiences  help  me  now  to 
appreciate  the  better  things.  If  it  be  true,  as 
some  sage  has  declared,  that  life  usually  pro- 
vides a  balanced  ration  of  happiness  and  mis- 
ery, I'm  glad  Dame  Fortune  exhausted  her 
spleen  on  me  before  I  grew  up." 

During  the  next  two  weeks  it  was  too  cold 
to  do  much  sight-seeing,  but  we  spent  many 
pleasant  hours  together,  theatre-going,  dining, 
and  other  indoor  diversions.  Then  one  day  I 
learned,  to  my  dismay,  that  she  and  her  hostess 
were  soon  to  leave  for  New  York  to  visit  some 
of  her  erstwhile  classmates  and  take  in  the 

[4] 


theatres.  It  was  a  gloomy  day  for  me  when  I 
saw  them  off  at  the  train,  after  which  I  re- 
turned to  my  apartment  where  I  usually  spent 
the  winter  months.  Although  no  words  of  love 
had  passed  between  us  we  had  many  tastes  in 
common,  such  as  dancing,  theatre-going,  card- 
playing  (she  was  an  expert  at  auction  bridge), 
backgammon,  music  and  other  diversionary 
pursuits.  In  fact,  I  made  up  my  mind  that  of 
all  the  women  I  knew  she  was  the  one  who 
measured  up  nearest  to  my  ideal.  Cheerful, 
attractive,  accomplished,  companionable  and  al- 
together appealing.  In  short,  she  was  the  girl 
I  had  been  waiting  for,  and  I  would  follow  her 
to  New  York.  I  wrote  her  several  letters  to  the 
hotel  where  she  and  her  chaperon-hostess  were 
staying,  and  while  her  letters  were  cordial 
enough,  they  were  brief  and  lacked  the  warmth 
and  affectionate  tenor  of  my  more  lengthy  let- 
ters to  her.  Just  as  I  was  about  to  entrain  for 
New  York  to  see  how  matters  stood  between  us, 
her  hostess  (who  had  returned  home)  called 
me  on  the  phone  and  in  great  distress  an- 
nounced that  our  Marguerite  had  become  ten- 
tatively engaged  to  marry  the  forty-year-old 
uncle  of  one  of  her  old  classmates.  "I  am  just 
shocked  half  to  death,"  she  screeched.  "He's  al- 
most old  enough  to  be  her  father ;  and  a  man  of 
his  age  who  has  never  married  must  have  some- 

[  5  ] 


thing  the  matter  with  himl  Isn't  there  some- 
thing you  can  do  about  it?" 

"You  say  they're  only  tentatively  engaged  ?" 

"Yes,  before  accepting  his  ring  she  made  it 
a  condition  that  he  visit  her  family.  Marguer- 
ite is  simply  crazy  to  live  in  New  York,  and 
that  must  be  her  reason  for  wanting  to  marry 
a  New  York  man.  But  think  of  it  —  that  beau- 
tiful young  girl  throwing  herself  away  on  an 
old  man!" 

And  so  all  my  fond  hopes  went  glimmering. 
I  finished  by  saying  she  was  of  age,  and  if  her 
folks  approved  of  her  choice  there  was  nothing 
we  could  do  about  it.  Being  almost  forty  years 
old  myself  I  doubted  if  my  informant  would 
consider  me  a  more  desirable  suitor  than  the 
one  Marguerite  had  chosen.  Therefore  I  had 
no  preventive  action  to  suggest. 

Time  dragged  lazily  on  for  some  weeks  dur- 
ing which  I  blamed  myself  for  being  such  a  stu- 
pid slow  worker  in  love  matters.  My  forty- 
year-old  competitor  in  New  York  had  outdis- 
tanced me  and  snatched  the  prize  I  had  allowed 
to  slip  away  from  me.  I  had  done  all  I  could  to 
ingratiate  myself,  but  after  all,  a  man  of  forty 
is  not  supposed  to  be  hasty  in  declaring  his  love 
for  a  young  girl,  who  might  reasonably  con- 
sider him  presumptuous.  During  our  short  ac- 
quaintance in  Boston  I  had  told  the  young  lady 

[6] 


of  a  ranch  I  owned  in  southeastern  Mexico  in 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  productive  oil  wells, 
and  already  I  had  leased  a  thousand  acres  on  a 
royalty  basis  to  a  syndicate  who  intended  to 
exploit  the  land.  And  after  some  weeks  follow- 
ing Marguerite's  return  home,  when  I  had 
about  reconciled  myself  to  the  existing  state  of 
affairs,  I  was  astonished  one  morning  to  re- 
ceive a  wee  note  from  her,  asking  if  I  didn't 
think  there  was  a  likelihood  of  discovering  oil 
in  the  vicinity  where  she  lived.  There  were  no 
oil  wells  within  a  thousand  miles  of  her  home 
town,  and  I  was  a  bit  puzzled  to  know  what  she 
meant.  Was  it  a  hint  for  me  to  visit  her  ?  I  an- 
swered that  I  was  quite  content  to  leave  the  job 
of  boring  oil  wells  to  others  and  concluded  by 
wishing  her  much  happiness  in  her  marital  life. 
Her  prompt  reply  was  that  she  was  not  con- 
templating any  marital  entaglements ;  that  the 
man  she  had  met  in  New  York  had  visited  her 
family  and  shortly  thereafter  he  packed  up  and 
went  home.  She  went  on  to  say  that  he  was  an 
executive  in  a  big  industrial  plant.  "He  was  a 
sort  of  Jekyl  and  Hyde  character.  When  I  first 
met  him  he  showed  only  his  best  and  most  en- 
gaging side,  but  when  he  came  to  visit  us  his 
idea  was  to  impress  my  family  with  his  great 
importance  —  to  show  them  what  a  wonderful 
match  their  daughter  could  make.  Indeed  this 


transition  made  him  seem  almost  an  utter 
stranger  to  me." 

Questioned  by  her  father,  the  man  grudg- 
ingly admitted  that  he  had  been  married  and 
divorced.  "A  fact  that  he  forgot  to  tell  me," 
she  added.  After  a  couple  of  days  the  mother 
turned  thumbs  down  on  him.  She  decided  that 
he  was  "too  dictatorial,  too  cocksure,  too  pos- 
sessive —  and  far  too  old."  The  mention  of  this 
latter  defect  gave  me  quite  a  shock.  After  ex- 
changing a  few  letters  Marguerite  persuaded 
her  mother  to  write,  asking  me  to  visit  them. 
For  some  time  I  pondered  whether  it  was 
worth-while  taking  the  chance  of  undergoing 
the  mother's  inspection  and  perhaps  sharing 
the  fate  of  my  predecessor;  but  finally  I  de- 
cided there  was  nothing  to  lose,  and  possibly 
much  to  gain.  The  girl  seemed  to  have  a  mind 
of  her  own,  and  even  if  the  family  disapproved 
there  was  still  a  chance. 

When  I  arrived  the  mother  received  me  gra- 
ciously, and  being  thus  momentarily  reassured 
I  proceeded  to  press  my  suit. 

Marguerite's  father  was  a  hard-headed,  cal- 
culating businessman.  In  conversation  with 
him  I  learned  that  his  daughter  had  had  three 
or  four  proposals  from  local  boys,  none  of 
whom  could  support  her  in  the  way  she  had 
been  accustomed  to  live.  He  had  warned  her 

[8] 


that  if  she  married  without  his  consent  she 
would  be  entirely  on  her  own,  and  needn't  ex- 
pect any  support  from  the  family.  After  spend- 
ing thousands  of  dollars  on  her  education  and 
travels  he  thought  she  ought  to  have  sense 
enough  to  marry  someone  who  could  provide 
for  her.  He  was  a  czar  in  his  own  home.  When 
he  entered  the  house  everyone  stood  at  atten- 
tion and  toadied  to  him  as  if  he  were  the  su- 
preme ruler  of  a  realm.  He  had  a  dual  per- 
sonality. In  many  respects  he  was  generous, 
humane  and  chicken-hearted.  Usually  he  was 
hard,  cynical  and  tyrannical.  After  a  few  days 
when  we  got  better  acquainted  I  kidded  and 
bantered  him  jovially,  and  he  loved  it.  I  wasn't 
any  more  afraid  of  him  than  I  was  of  Mar- 
guerite, who  always  humored  him  for  the  sake 
of  family  harmony.  When  he  came  home  in  the 
evening  and  planted  himself  in  his  big  easy 
chair  she'd  say,  "Papa  darling,  are  you  quite 
comfortable?"  Then  she  would  scurry  about 
getting  a  sofa  pillow  for  his  back  and  a  foot- 
stool for  his  feet. 

Shortly  after  my  arrival,  one  evening  when 
the  father  and  I  were  alone  he  looked  at  me 
cynically  through  his  keen,  penetrating  blue 
eyes  and  asked  what  business  I  was  in,  "aside 
from  dabbling  in  literature." 

[9] 


I  didn't  like  that  word  "dabbling,"  so  I  shot 
back  at  him,  "I'm  a  farmer." 

His  eyes  widened.  "A  farmer !"  he  exploded. 
"Good  Lord!  What  do  you  raise?" 

"Most  every  thing  that  grows  on  a  farm  — 
cows,  horses,  chickens,  pigs,  turkeys,  and  a 
large  orchard." 

"Do  you  find  it  profitable?" 

"No.  I  lose  from  four  to  five  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year." 

"Then  why  do  you  keep  it  up?" 

"Because  I  like  it.  And  besides,  I  have  an  ef- 
ficient English  butler  and  a  housekeeper,  to 
both  of  whom  I'm  greatly  attached." 

"Huh !  An  altruist,  eh  ?"  he  grunted.  At  this 
juncture  Marguerite  joined  us. 

"Have  you  ever  traveled?"  her  father  asked. 

"Not  extensively,  but  I  should  like  to  travel 
throughout  the  world  if  I  could  find  a  congenial 
traveling-mate . ' ' 

At  that  I  looked  at  Marguerite,  whose  face 
lit  up  like  a  sunrise.  Incidentally,  I  knew  she 
had  the  "travel-itch"  in  its  most  virulent  form. 
She  had  been  all  over  Europe  and  spoke  French 
fluently,  after  spending  two  years  traveling  and 
studying  music  in  Paris. 

Presently  the  father  got  up.  "All  right,  Baby 
(he  always  called  her  Baby),  I'll  leave  you  with 

[  10] 


your  farmer  friend  to  teach  you  all  about  how 
to  raise  chickens." 

Marguerite's  mother  was  a  beautiful  woman, 
with  an  independent  fortune  of  her  own.  Indeed 
if  she  had  been  a  widow  and  I  had  met  her  be- 
fore meeting  the  daughter,  I  should  have  fallen 
in  love  with  her  at  first  sight.  I  took  special 
pains  to  play  up  to  her  as  if  she  were  the  one  I 
adored  instead  of  her  daughter.  If  she  had  any 
misgivings  about  my  age  she  kept  them  to  her- 
self. The  daughter  was  as  clever  and  tactful 
as  the  mother.  She  looked  after  my  laundry, 
laid  out  my  shirts  with  ties  to  match,  and  cuff- 
links inserted  (I  had  two  sets),  attended  to 
having  my  shoes  shined,  and  a  dozen  other  little 
attentions  so  new  to  me,  and  so  dear  to  a  man's 
heart.  When  we  played  cards,  if  the  heat  went 
down  in  the  room,  knowing  that  I  was  sensi- 
tive to  cold  she  would  get  her  fur  coat  and  wrap 
it  about  my  legs  and  feet.  She  could  have  found 
a  blanket  instead  of  her  mink  coat,  which  most 
people  would  consider  too  precious  to  be  used 
in  keeping  a  man's  legs  warm.  There  is  a  com- 
mon saying  that  the  way  to  a  man's  heart  is 
through  his  stomach.  But  the  shorter  and  surer 
way  to  a  man's  heart  —  if  he  has  any  heart  — 
is  the  treatment  Marguerite  practiced  on  me. 

"Men  are  just  grown-up  children,"  she  said. 
"They  want  to  be  loved  and  coddled  and  made 


to  think  they  are  master  in  the  home ;  but  in  a 
well-managed  household  they  really  have  no 
more  authority  than  a  caged  rabbit."  I  don't 
know  how  she  ever  got  that  idea  in  the  home  of 
a  domineering  parent,  but  as  long  as  she  felt 
that  way  I  didn't  raise  the  point.  In  fact,  if  she 
proved  to  be  as  sweet  and  considerate  in  the 
capacity  of  wife  as  she  was  as  sweetheart  I  was 
quite  willing  to  submit  to  her  household  au- 
thority. Her  motto  was,  that  it's  easier  to  man- 
age a  man  with  love  and  diplomacy  than  it  is  to 
drive  him  by  command.  I  had  for  so  long  been 
sole  commander  in  my  home  that  I  felt  it  would 
be  a  novelty  to  let  a  diplomatic  spouse  take  over 
the  reins. 

Marguerite  was  coquettish,  and  as  playful  as 
a  kitten.  Her  mother  said  she  had  had  a  number 
of  proposals,  and  for  fear  of  hurting  the  swain's 
feelings  she  never  actually  refused  any  of  them. 
She  would  simply  laugh  and  change  to  another 
subject,  or  possibly  invite  them  to  her  home  to 
dine  and  talk  with  the  family.  The  mother  also 
told  me  that  Marguerite  was  never  even  ten- 
tatively engaged  to  the  New  York  man  —  that 
she  liked  him  and  wanted  to  find  out  what  her 
parents  thought  of  him. 

I  sometimes  heard  Marguerite  kidding  and 
flirting  playfully  with  boys  over  the  telephone; 
but  always  she  refused  their  invitations,  ex- 

[    12] 


cusing  herself  with  one  pretense  or  another  — 
perhaps  because  she  was  too  busy  attending  to 
me. 

After  we  became  engaged  I  asked  her  if  she 
didn't  think  she  was  taking  a  long  chance  in 
marrying  a  man  much  older  than  herself. 

"Not  at  all,"  she  said.  "You  have  at  least 
thirty  good  years  ahead  of  you,  and  that's  as 
long  as  I  care  to  live,  anyway." 

Then  after  our  engagement  was  announced, 
I  said  to  her,  "Darling,  you  have  a  very  jeal- 
ous man  on  your  hands  (which  was  not  wholly 
true),  and  I'm  afraid  that  with  your  coquettish 
nature  you'll  cause  me  a  lot  of  headaches." 

She  put  her  arms  over  my  shoulders.  "Now 
listen,  my  husband-to-be,  if  ever  I  do  or  say 
anything  that  makes  you  unhappy  just  tell  me 
and  I'll  never  repeat  it  again.  And  what's  more, 
if  I'm  ever  guilty  of  any  great  wrong  I  want 
to  take  my  beating  on  the  spot  and  have  it  over 
with." 

She  was  honest,  candid,  open-hearted  and 
unspoiled.  She  never  approached  you  holding 
one  hand  behind  her.  She  was  a  lively  conversa- 
tionalist, a  good  listener  and  always  laughed 
at  my  jokes,  no  matter  if  she'd  already  heard 
them.  She  had  no  patience  with  women  who 
think  it's  smart  to  speak  derisively  of  their  hus- 
bands in  company.  And  jealousy  was  entirely 

[  13  ] 


foreign  to  her  nature.  Once,  at  a  rollicking 
party,  long  after  we  were  married,  when  a  girl 
flopped  herself  down  onto  my  lap,  Marguerite 
called  to  her,  "Go  to  it,  sister.  If  the  girls  like 
my  husband  it  makes  him  all  the  more  attrac- 
tive to  me." 

Our  courtship  days  would  be  considered 
rather  static  by  those  story-book  lovers  who 
squabble  and  deceive  one  another  in  order  to 
conceal  their  innermost  feelings.  "I  hate  you, 
I  despise  you !  Get  out  of  my  house  and  never 
show  your  face  again !"  the  girl  screeches  melo- 
dramatically;  yet  all  the  while  she  is  dying  to 
have  him  take  her  in  his  arms  and  smother  her 
with  kisses.  I  never  cared  much  for  that  kind 
of  courtship.  It  takes  too  long  for  the  combat- 
ants to  get  together.  Lovers  who  are  deceitful, 
secretive  and  quarrelsome  before  marriage  are 
almost  sure  to  be  deceitful  and  quarrelsome 
after  marriage.  And  the  old  saying  that  quar- 
reling is  compensated  by  the  joy  of  making  up 
afterwards  is  pure  bunkum. 

I  didn't  ask  Marguerite  if  she  would  marry 
me.  I  merely  asked  if  she  didn't  think  it  would 
be  fun  to  get  married.  In  answer  she  hugged 
and  kissed  me,  which  was  all  the  answer  I 
needed.  It  seems  a  safe  way  to  propose,  al- 
though in  my  case  I  felt  reasonably  sure  the  re- 
sponse would  be  favorable.  But  where  there 

[  HI 


is  any  doubt,  if  the  girl  is  cool  to  the  suggestion 
or  asks  for  time  to  think  it  over,  you  have  an 
easy  way  out  by  laughing  it  off  as  a  crazy  idea 
—  a  mere  joke.  A  man  who  pleads  and  begs  a 
girl  to  marry  him  is  a  mere  novice  in  the  fine 
art  of  lovemaking,  and  is  usually  rejected.  Mar- 
riage being  the  natural  outgrowth  of  mutual 
love,  when  two  sensible  people  are  in  love  with 
each  other,  if  the  man  is  at  all  bright  he  knows 
when  and  how  to  propose. 

When  I  approached  Marguerite's  father  to 
ask  his  permission,  I  scarcely  knew  how  to  be- 
gin. I  felt  somewhat  like  a  bashful  country 
schoolboy  asking  a  peevish  teacher  for  permis- 
sion to  "go  out."  Finally  I  managed  to  say,  "I 
hope  you  are  in  a  receptive  mood." 

He  looked  at  me  wonderingly.  "What  do 
you  mean,  receptive  mood  ?" 

"I  mean  that  I  have  an  important  request  to 
make." 

"Well,  spit  it  out.  What  is  it?" 

"I  have  come  to  ask  the  hand  of  your  charm- 
ing daughter." 

"Oh  — that's  how  it  is.  Is  that  all?" 

"That's  all  I  can  think  of  just  now." 

For  a  moment  he  was  silent.  "You  must 
know  you  ask  a  great  deal  in  robbing  me  of  my 
only  child." 

"Yes,  I  realize  that,  but  you  must  remember 

[  is  ] 


you  have  enjoyed  her  devotion  for  twenty-four 
years,  and  you'd  still  have  the  companionship  of 
your  charming,  devoted  wife.  As  much  as  your 
daughter  would  regret  leaving  you,  she  feels 
she  must  look  to  the  future,  the  same  as  you 
did  in  getting  married;  and  I'm  sure  you 
wouldn't  deny  her  the  opportunity  of  marry- 
ing the  man  she  honestly  professes  to  love." 

He  got  up  and  rested  his  hand  on  my  shoul- 
der. "Well,  since  you  put  it  that  way,  I  suppose 
it's  my  duty  to  consent.  But  with  the  proviso 
that  you'll  love  and  care  for  her  as  I  have." 

"Thank  you,"  I  said,  "I  cheerfully  accept 
that  condition." 

We  were  married  the  following  fall,  and  the 
father  certainly  played  the  role  of  a  real  prince 
in  making  the  affair  a  grand  success.  At  the 
reception  following  the  wedding  there  were 
nearly  a  hundred  guests  and  almost  everyone, 
including  myself,  got  gloriously  high  on  cham- 
pagne. One  guest  after  another  insisted  that  I 
drink  "bottoms  up  to  Marguerite."  The  "bot- 
toms up"  were  my  undoing.  Later  in  the  eve- 
ning I  stumbled  over  a  hassock  and  landed  bot- 
tom up  on  the  floor.  I  remember  being  carried 
upstairs  by  the  butler  and  two  slightly  inebri- 
ated guests  who  threw  me  sprawling  onto  the 
bed.  I  remember,  too,  that  my  bride  (cold  so- 

[  16] 


her)  stood  over  me  giggling,  while  she  applied 
cold  compresses  to  my  head. 

"What's  so  funny?"  I  asked. 

"You,  darling.  You  look  as  though  you  had 
been  the  chief  mourner  at  an  Irish  wake." 

"Hah!  My  charming  wife  was  at  her  best 
last  night  —  no,  it  must  have  been  tonight.  I 
saw  a  whole  regiment  of  your  old  sweethearts 
lined  up  waiting  to  kiss  the  bride." 

"No,  dearest,  you  were  seeing  double.  There 
were  only  ten." 

"Is  the  party  over?  Has  everybody  gone 
home?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,  I  think  so  —  at  least  all  who  are  able 
to  travel."  She  leaned  over  and  kissed  me  ten- 
derly. 

"Thank  you,  darling.  Since  you  deign  to  soil 
your  sweet  lips  on  this  drunken  spouse,  it's  a 
sure  test  of  your  love." 

"Now  close  your  eyes,  darling.  I'll  sit  right 
here  while  you  get  some  much  needed  sleep." 

The  next  night  we  left  for  Chicago  where  we 
planned  to  spend  a  day  or  two  before  going  to 
Virginia  Hot  Springs,  and  the  following  morn- 
ing I  went  into  the  Blackstone  flower  shop  to 
get  a  bouquet  for  Marguerite.  There  was  a 
huge  display  of  orchids,  some  with  three  blos- 
soms to  the  stalk,  others  with  two,  and  some 
with  only  one.  I  asked  the  price  and  the  man 

[  17] 


said,  "Three  dollars."  I  took  one  stalk  with 
three,  and  not  wishing  to  be  piggish  I  selected 
one  with  two  blossoms,  and  one  with  only  one 
—  figuring  it  would  be  nine  dollars  for  the 
three.  Then  I  had  him  make  them  up  into  a 
bouquet  with  a  few  lilies-of-the-valley.  I  handed 
him  a  twenty  dollar  bill  and  stood  waiting  for 
my  change.  He  put  the  bill  in  the  cash  drawer 
and  turned  to  me,  rubbing  his  palms.  "Thank 
you,"  he  said,  "call  again." 

I  said,  "Was  that  the  correct  amount  ?" 
"Yes,  three  dollars  per  blossom  and  two  dol- 
lars for  the  lilies-of-the-valley.  Those  lilies 
come  pretty  high  nowadays."  I  thought  so  too. 
We  went  to  Virginia  Hot  Springs  for  two 
weeks,  then  to  the  Hotel  Gotham  in  New  York, 
where  we  stayed  until  after  Christmas,  doing 
all  the  theatres  and  one  or  two  night  clubs. 
Marguerite  was  always  happy  in  New  York. 
She  actually  purred  the  moment  she  got  a  whiff 
of  the  city's  intoxicating  atmosphere.  She  was 
also  a  zealous  devotee  of  Paris  and  Monte 
Carlo.  "New  York,  Paris  and  Monte  Carlo," 
she  said,  "are  the  three  places  on  earth  that  I 
love  best  —  except  the  farm,"  she  added  as  an 
afterthought  merely  to  please  me.  She  loved  the 
very  atmosphere  inside  of  a  New  York  theatre 
and  always  found  some  redeeming  feature  in  a 
play  even  if  it  were  an  insipid  "flop."  In  after 

[  18] 


years  she  once  remarked  that  she  liked  a  sad 
play,  because  it  gave  her  the  only  chance  she 
ever  had  to  feel  sorry. 

From  New  York  we  went  to  Palm  Beach 
where  I  had  engaged  a  housekeeping  apart- 
ment for  the  winter.  I  joined  a  couple  of  clubs 
and  we  met  several  people  of  our  acquaintance. 
We  changed  cooks  twice  and  finally  got  one 
worse  than  the  other  two.  A  few  days  after  in- 
stalling our  third  dusky  maid  Marguerite  de- 
cided to  give  a  swell  home  dinner  for  four  of 
our  fashionable  friends  who  had  entertained  us. 
We  rented  some  elegant  china  and  flat  silver 
and  Marguerite  helped  the  girl  get  the  porter- 
house steak  and  all  the  fixings  into  apple-pie- 
order.  She's  an  excellent  cook  —  that  is,  my 
wife,  not  the  new  maid.  The  dinner  was  a  tri- 
umphant success.  But  when  it  came  to  the  des- 
sert something  awful  happened.  The  maid 
served  the  ice  cream  in  finger  bowls ! 

We  arrived  at  the  farm  in  May  during  apple- 
blossom  time,  the  most  glorious  season  of  the 
year  —  for  me.  The  orchard  in  full  bloom  sur- 
rounding the  house  on  all  sides  was  a  picture  of 
splendid  —  almost  unearthly  —  beauty.  We 
spent  a  busy  summer,  during  which  Marguer- 
ite rearranged  all  the  furniture  and  added  a 
dozen  or  so  new  pieces.  She  made  new  window 
draperies,  sofa  cushions,  lampshades,  hem- 

[  19] 


stitched  sheets,  napkins  and  pillowcases,  and 
never  once  complained  of  loneliness.  When  I 
asked  if  she  were  happy  at  the  farm  she  said, 
"You  love  the  place,  darling,  and  little  as  I  care 
for  the  country,  I'll  gladly  spend  the  summers 
here  with  you  if  you'll  take  me  gallivanting  in 
the  winter.  In  other  words,  I'll  live  with  you 
in  summer  and  you'll  live  with  me  in  winter." 

I  had  promised  to  make  her  happy,  and  I 
meant  to  keep  my  promise,  no  matter  what  the 
cost  I  used  to  say  to  hen  "Happy?"  and  she'd 
answer,  "M-m-m-m-mm  —  so  happy!" 

Marguerite  went  over  the  house,  upstairs 
and  down,  with  pencil  and  memorandum  book 
making  notes  of  contemplated  changes  and  im- 
provements. I  watched  her  with  curious  inter- 
est, wondering  if  she  planned  on  tearing  down 
the  partitions  and  revamping  the  entire  house. 
First,  all  my  deer-heads,  stuffed  birds  and  other 
precious  relics  were  snatched  from  their  places, 
consigned  to  the  attic,  and  forgotten  —  by  her, 
at  least.  But  I  figured  that  the  dislodgement  of 
these  silent  trophies  was  trivial  compared  to 
what  I  gained  by  her  sweet,  cheerful  compan- 
ionship. I  recalled  her  remark,  that  a  man  has 
no  more  authority  in  his  own  home  than  a  caged 
rabbit.  (At  least  she  had  forewarned  me).  But 
I  didn't  mind  it  as  long  as  it  made  her  happy. 
She  was  as  busy  as  a  bee  in  a  buckwheat  field. 

[20] 


Eventually  she  had  painters,  plasterers,  paper- 
hangers,  carpenters,  stone-masons  and  plumb- 
ers swarming  all  over  the  place.  The  breakfast 
room  was  all  done  over  in  pink  and  grey,  with 
a  huge  bay  window  built  in  at  the  southeast 
corner  to  let  in  the  morning  sun.  Downstairs 
partitions  were  torn  out  and  three  small  rooms 
were  converted  into  a  forty-foot  living  room 
with  beamed  ceiling,  and  a  six-foot  fieldstone 
fireplace  at  each  end.  One  of  the  smaller  bed- 
rooms was  converted  into  a  bathroom  with 
sunken  tub.  She  had  a  lavendar  bathroom,  I 
had  a  pink  bathroom  and  the  guest  bathroom 
was  in  pale  blue.  Six  bedrooms  were  being  re- 
papered,  the  ceilings  calcimined  and  all  the 
floors  were  scraped  and  waxed.  The  Oriental 
rugs  slipped  about  on  them  as  if  they  were  on 
skids.  I  nearly  broke  my  neck  one  night  as  I 
was  hurrying  to  answer  the  telephone.  A  small 
rug  slid  out  under  my  feet  and  I  went  sprawl- 
ing across  the  room,  striking  my  head  against 
the  base  of  a  big  marble  pedestal. 

"Aren't  we  having  fun !"  Marguerite  chuck- 
led one  day  while  the  uproar  was  going  on. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "the  old  joint  has  come  to  life 
with  a  bang.  When  you  finish  with  the  house  if 
there  are  any  changes  you  would  like  to  make 
in  the  barn,  let  me  know." 

I  meant  it  for  a  jovial  remark,  but  she  didn't 

[21    ] 


take  it  that  way.  She  looked  suddenly  hurt  and 
her  eyes  grew  misty.  "I  don't  believe  you  half 
appreciate  what  I'm  doing.  And  I'm  doing  it 
all  for  you,  because  I  love  you  so,"  she  whim- 
pered. 

I  took  her  in  my  arms  and  kissed  her  tears 
away.  "Please  forgive  me  for  that  nasty  remark, 
which  sounded  much  worse  than  I  intended. 
You  precious  darling,  you're  doing  a  wonder- 
ful, wonderful  job  and  I'm  so  crazy  about  you 
that  I  wouldn't  care  a  damn  if  you  tore  the 
whole  house  to  pieces,  just  so  you  leave  a  roof 
over  our  heads."  Then  she  smiled  and  kissed 
me. 

With  that  season's  expenses  I  could  have 
bought  and  stocked  a  farm,  with  money  to 
spare,  but  as  she  said,  it  was  fun  —  for  her.  Al- 
beit, I  considered  the  money  well  spent.  Once, 
in  the  midst  of  the  remodelling  turmoil,  I  said 
to  her,  "Darling,  don't  you  ever  get  tired  of 
having  an  idle  man  about  your  neck  and  under 
your  feet  day  and  night?" 

"Don't  bother  me  with  such  nonsense  when 
I'm  busy."  And  off  she  went  to  give  orders  in 
some  other  part  of  the  house.  About  the  only 
times  she  ever  scolded  me  was  when  I  crushed 
and  stirred  my  ice  cream  to  soften  it.  She  liked 
hers  frozen  hard. 

At  the  end  of  the  season  Marguerite  said, 

[22] 


"Darling,  you  do  like  the  changes  I  have  made, 
don't  you?" 

"Yes,  sweetheart,  I'm  simply  nuts  about  ev- 
erything you've  done;  but  please  don't  change 
my  comfortable  bed  for  some  newfangled  sleep- 
ing device." 

Early  in  October  we  took  an  apartment  in 
New  York  where  we  had  a  round  of  theatre- 
going,  bridge  parties,  concerts  and  Grand  Op- 
era. The  latter  often  bored  me,  though  Mar- 
guerite loved  it,  so  I  endured  it.  Among  the 
pleasant  people  who  came  to  our  parties,  there 
was  the  scintillating  "Bill"  Haskell,  an  old- 
time  sweetheart  who  used  to  take  Marguerite 
sled-riding  in  their  childhood  days.  The  only 
sign  of  jealousy  that  Marguerite  ever  showed 
was  one  day  while  we  were  window-shopping 
along  Fifth  Avenue.  I  very  injudiciously  called 
her  attention  to  a  pair  of  shapely  feminine 
calves  just  ahead  of  us. 

"You  should  worry  about  women's  legs,"  she 
snapped.  Then  she  looked  up  with  a  smile,  as 
much  as  to  say,  "I  didn't  really  mean  that,"  and 
squeezed  my  arm. 

In  January  we  went  to  Paris  for  six  whirli- 
gig weeks,  then  to  Monte  Carlo,  where  we  were 
joined  by  Marguerite's  father  and  mother.  We 
often  dined  at  the  casino  across  from  the  Hotel 
de  Paris.  The  gigolos  would  ask  me  ( they  never 

[  23  ] 


ask  the  girl  first,  always  her  escort)  if  they 
might  dance  with  "Mademoiselle,"  who  was 
supposed  to  give  them  ten  francs  or  so  for  each 
dance.  (Francs  were  ten  cents  at  that  time). 
Marguerite  danced  several  times  with  them. 
After  I  had  danced  a  few  times  with  her  she 
insisted  that  I  dance  with  some  of  the  profes- 
sional dancing  girls. 

"Nothing  doing,"  I  said.  "They  can't  talk 
English  and  I  can't  talk  French." 

"There,"  she  said,  pointing  to  a  beautiful 
young  girl  on  the  floor,  wearing  a  fluffy  white 
wig  and  tripping  about  as  light  as  a  feather  in 
the  wind,  "when  she  finishes  this  dance  go  up 
and  say  to  her,  Pardon  moi,  Mademoiselle  — 
mais  voulez  dance  avec  moi?" 

I  wasn't  sure  of  the  meaning  of  all  this,  but 
doubtless  it  meant  that  I  wanted  to  dance  with 
the  girl ;  so  I  rehearsed  the  speech  several  times, 
then  a  little  later  when  the  young  lady  was 
seated  at  a  nearby  table  I  edged  cautiously  up 
to  her,  but  not  a  word  of  that  darned  speech 
could  I  remember.  So  I  said,  "Excuse  me  —  I 
don't  suppose  you  speak  English?" 

She  looked  up  and  smiled.  "Oh  yes,  I  speak 
English  very  well.  I  am  an  English  girl." 

I  invited  her  to  our  table  and  introduced  her 
to  the  family.  My  father-in-law  furbished  up 
his  vocabulary  and  took  quite  a  shine  to  the 

[24] 


beautiful  dancer.  And  Marguerite  was  so 
charmed  with  her  that  she  asked  her  to  dine 
with  us.  We  spent  a  pleasant  evening  together, 
during  which  the  girl  declined  many  invitations 
to  dance  with  others.  I  danced  with  her  a  few 
times  and  she  refused  to  accept  a  fee.  When  I 
insisted  she  uttered  a  positive  "No  \  This  is  for 
good  old  England.  God  bless  America!" 

Early  in  April  we  sailed  for  Bermuda  for  a 
three  weeks  stay.  At  this  time  Marguerite  was 
three  months  along  with  her  first  baby  and  by 
the  middle  of  May  we  all  four  were  at  the  farm, 
where  "Daddy  and  Mama"  spent  six  happy 
weeks  with  us.  And  contrary  to  the  average 
run  of  feminine  in-laws,  my  mother-in-law  was 
the  most  lovable  friend  I  ever  had.  Marguerite 
having  kept  me  in  such  a  dizzy  whirl  from  one 
place  to  another,  I  was  glad  to  get  back  home 
where  I  could  settle  down,  collect  my  senses, 
sleep  in  my  own  bed,  and  get  some  good  home- 
cooked  food.  It  was  a  quiet  summer  during 
which  Marguerite  enjoyed  the  best  of  health 
and  high  spirits,  wondering  the  while  what  sort 
of  offspring  she  would  produce.  She  wanted  a 
boy,  and  eventually  that's  what  she  got. 

Marguerite  decided  to  place  herself  under 
the  care  of  a  doctor  in  New  York  who  had  at- 
tended her  in  her  student  days.  She  spent  many 
hours  with  a  seamstress  preparing  a  huge  bas- 

[  25  ] 


sinet,  with  tiny  lavender  pillow,  lavender  rib- 
bons streaming  from  the  handle  and  on  all  sides, 
lavender  linings,  lavender  blanket,  lavender  all 
over.  (Lavender  was  her  favorite  color.)  It 
was  carefully  done  up  in  frail  tissue  wrappings, 
secured  by  safety  pins.  On  October  first,  a  short 
time  before  the  "great  event,"  we  entrained  for 
New  York  and,  entering  the  Pullman  car,  filled 
with  passengers,  Marguerite  marched  down 
the  aisle  followed  by  me  carrying  the  bassinet. 
Then  a  terrible  thing  happened.  The  tissue 
wrapping  caught  on  something,  tearing  it  all 
off  and  I  marched  along  behind  with  the  laven- 
der ribbons  fluttering  in  all  directions.  The  pas- 
sengers tittered  gleefully,  and  as  if  this  were 
not  embarrassing  enough,  some  unregenerate 
wag  behind  me  chirped,  "I  hope  she  don't  drop 
it  on  the  train !" 

At  the  maternity  hospital  Marguerite  was 
assigned  to  a  young  nurse  who  cheerfully  an- 
nounced that  two  of  her  last  three  patients  had 
died  in  childbirth.  A  couple  of  months  later 
when  we  returned  to  Boston  with  our  eight- 
pound  baby  and  an  English  nurse  we  found  at 
the  hospital,  our  winter  apartment  was  under- 
going repairs,  so  we  moved  into  a  little  nearby 
sparsely  furnished  dump  for  a  few  days.  One 
day  I  received  an  urgent  telephone  call  at  my 

[  26] 


club,  and  Marguerite  was  on  the  wire  in  great 
alarm. 

"Oh,  darling,  come  quick!  I'm  afraid  our 
baby  is  dying!" 

I  said,  "Call  Dr.  Smith,  the  famous  baby 
specialist,  and  I'll  be  right  up." 

When  I  arrived  the  nurse  and  maid  were 
both  out  for  a  few  hours  and  Marguerite  was 
alone  with  the  baby,  who  was  goo-gooing  and 
kicking  up  his  toes  gleefully.  Presently  the  doc- 
tor arrived  and  after  examining  the  baby  thor- 
oughly he  turned  to  the%  anxiously  waiting 
mother  and  said,  "Well,  madam,  I've  seldom 
seen  a  healthier  baby." 

"But  doctor,  he  threw  up  a  lot  of  curdly 
stuff  and  stared  up  at  the  ceiling  as  if  he  were 
looking  for  God." 

The  doctor  laughed  heartily.  "That  happens 
to  all  healthy  babies  when  they're  overfed." 

After  glancing  about  the  shabby  apartment 
the  doctor  picked  up  his  bag  and  left. 

"Well,  darling,"  I  said,  "it's  worth  the  fifty 
dollar  fee  (that,  I  had  heard,  was  his  custom- 
ary charge  for  a  call  and  examination)  to  quiet 
your  fears." 

"It  certainly  is.  I  wouldn't  care  if  he  charges 
a  hundred." 

The  first  of  next  month  I  received  the  doc- 

1 27] 


tor's  bill  for  five  dollar s\  Marguerite  laughed. 
"I  guess  he  thought  that  was  all  we  had." 

A  few  weeks  later  the  baby  developed  some 
sort  of  rash  and  Marguerite  had  the  chauffeur 
drive  them,  accompanied  by  the  nurse,  down  to 
the  doctor's  office  for  inspection;  and  when  we 
got  his  bill  for  that  office  visit  it  was  for  thirty- 
five  dollars. 

When  our  boy  was  six  years  old  we  took  him 
to  Europe  and  visited  many  historic  places.  Up 
to  that  time  the  boy  had  never  been  punished 
but  once,  when  he  was  two  years  old.  He  had 
been  playing  with  a  toy  engine,  throwing  it 
about  the  room.  His  mother  said,  "No,  no,  dar- 
ling, you  must  not  do  that!"  Whereupon  he 
picked  up  the  toy  and  laughingly  smashed  it 
through  the  window  pane.  She  turned  him  over 
and  spanked  him  soundly  with  a  hair  brush. 
Instead  of  crying  or  resenting  it  he  put  his 
arms  about  her  and  kissed  her.  Neither  of  us 
ever  punished  him  after  that.  He  never  needed 
it.  At  the  age  of  seven  we  placed  him  in  board- 
ing school  and  sailed  for  Cherbourg.  On  the 
previous  visit  to  Paris  it  had  rained  or  snowed 
for  days  and  days,  but  this  time  when  we 
reached  Cherbourg  it  was  a  bright  sunny  day. 
As  we  were  disembarking  I  said,  "I'll  bet  it  will 
be  snowing  in  Paris." 

"Oh  hush!  Don't  be  a  killjoy." 

[28] 


Arriving  in  Paris  late  at  night  we  were  tired 
and  went  early  to  bed.  Next  morning  Marguer- 
ite was  up  at  dawn,  long  before  I  got  up.  I 
heard  her  scampering  about  preparing  to  go 
out,  anxious  to  enjoy  the  morning  air  in  her 
dearly  beloved  Paris.  About  eight  o'clock  she 
came  in  while  I  was  shaving.  "Well,  darling, 
did  you  have  a  pleasant  walk?" 

She  sniffled  into  her  handkerchief  two  or 
three  times  and  wiped  her  little  red  nose,  look- 
ing the  picture  of  misery. 

"What's  the  matter,  dear?" 

"It's  snowing !  —  and  it's  all  your  fault,"  she 
whimpered. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  man  was  ever  more 
abundantly  blessed,  with  a  wonderful  little  pal 
for  a  wife  and  a  healthy  promising  boy.  I  often 
wondered  if  such  happiness  could  last.  Hap- 
pily, however,  I  was  not  able  to  foresee  the  fu- 
ture. 

When  our  boy  finished  primary  school  he  en- 
tered St.  Mark's  at  Southboro,  where  I  had 
registered  him  at  birth.  He  had  a  peculiar  ac- 
cident there.  A  baseball  struck  him  on  the  right 
side  of  his  nose,  knocking  it  badly  askew.  Then 
after  a  few  days  while  waiting  for  a  surgeon 
from  Boston  to  perform  a  corrective  operation, 
he  was  engaged  in  a  hockey  game  where  a  fly- 
ing puck  caught  his  nose  on  the  other  side  and 

[29] 


knocked  it  back  into  its  natural  position.  Grad- 
uating from  St.  Mark's  he  entered  Yale  at  the 
age  of  seventeen.  Four  years  later  he  was  grad- 
uated with  honors  and  entered  Law  School. 
While  at  Yale  he  spent  many  week-ends  at 
home,  usually  with  a  group  of  his  classmates, 
together  with  several  students  from  Harvard 
who  had  been  his  buddies  at  St.  Mark's.  Al- 
though we  had  six  bedrooms,  Marguerite  and 
I  often  doubled  up  in  one  room  and  the  boys 
sometimes  had  to  sleep  two  in  a  bed.  Our  back- 
yard looked  like  a  public  parking  lot. 

During  the  intervening  winters  Marguerite 
and  I  traveled  everywhere  —  to  Europe  several 
times,  to  Bermuda,  Mexico,  Nassau,  Havana, 
Jerusalem,  the  West  Indies,  Palm  Beach  (five 
winters),  California,  once  to  Hawaii,  and  the 
Lord  only  knows  where  else.  In  fact  we  were 
always  on  the  go  from  October  to  May.  She 
led  me  a  galloping  pace.  As  time  went  on  I  be- 
came a  bit  surfeited  with  this  sort  of  nomadic 
life,  but  I  couldn't  tell  her  that.  Truth  is,  I 
never  could  quite  understand  why  people  will 
leave  the  best  country  in  the  world  to  gad  about 
and  suffer  hardships  in  strange  lands  with 
strange  languages,  strange  customs,  strange 
food,  and  oftentimes  uncomfortable  modes  of 
conveyance  —  not  to  mention  wretchedly  inad- 
equate heating  facilities.  In  many  countries  we 

[  30] 


put  up  with  miserable  hotel  accommodations 
and  all  sorts  of  weather.  In  Jerusalem  we  slept 
in  our  fur  coats,  and  in  Calcutta  we  nearly  died 
of  the  heat.  We  slept  in  stuffy  rooms  on  musty, 
lumpy  mattresses  that  felt  as  if  they  were 
stuffed  with  corncobs.  We  ate  sloppy  food, 
drank  dishwater  coffee,  without  cream  or  sugar 
—  no  butter  —  tainted  meat,  and  so  on  and  on 
ad  infinitum  —  privations  and  discomforts  un- 
dreamed of  at  home.  In  Jerusalem,  just  after 
World  War  I,  the  food  was  so  unpalatable  that 
it  beggars  description.  The  only  things  we  felt 
safe  in  eating  were  their  Jaffa  oranges  and 
boiled  eggs,  not  much  larger  than  pigeons' 
eggs;  and  they  looked  as  if  they'd  been  boiled 
in  muddy  water.  At  breakfast  one  morning 
when  I  suggested  that  they  looked  suspiciously 
like  buzzards'  eggs,  Marguerite  refused  to 
touch  another  one ;  and  so,  cold  and  hungry,  we 
got  out  of  town  and  back  to  the  excursion 
steamer  waiting  in  the  harbor  of  Haifa  —  glad 
to  escape  from  the  motley  horde  of  camels,  don- 
keys and  slovenly  specimens  of  humanity  mill- 
ing about  and  rubbing  shoulders  in  the  middle 
of  the  narrow,  crowded,  ill-smelling  passage- 
ways called  streets. 

Noting  the  scarcity  of  Jewish  people  in  the 
city,  I  had  remarked  to  the  English  clerk  in  the 
hotel,  that  Jerusalem  was  supposed  to  be  the 

[31  ] 


home  of  the  Jews.  "Where  do  they  keep  them- 
selves?" I  asked. 

He  grinned.  "Can  you  blame  'em  for  not 
wanting  to  be  pushed  about  in  this  town's  het- 
erogeneous rabble?" 

We  arrived  at  Saville,  Spain,  in  the  midst 
of  a  grand  three  day  fiesta,  and  had  difficulty  in 
finding  hotel  accommodations.  After  much 
scouting  about  we  engaged  quarters  in  a  sup- 
posedly first  class  hotel  and  leaving  our  lug- 
gage to  be  sent  to  the  room  we  went  out  for 
dinner  and  the  theatre.  On  returning  late  we 
discovered  they  had  assigned  us  to  a  spacious 
unheated  barnlike  room  in  the  annex,  with 
stone  floor,  and  smudgy  walls  and  ceiling.  It 
looked  like  an  old  converted  store  room,  facing 
on  a  cobblestone  street  where  the  rumbling  traf- 
fic outside,  even  at  that  late  hour,  was  so  deaf- 
ening it  would  have  been  impossible  to  sleep. 
When  we  turned  back  the  thin  bed  covers  the 
sheets  felt  damp,  cold  and  clammy.  And  so, 
without  unpacking  our  bags  we  paid  for  the 
night's  lodging  and  went  out  looking  for  a  taxi, 
which  we  had  the  good  fortune  to  find,  and  I 
asked  the  driver  to  take  us  to  the  best  hotel  in 
town.  He  shook  his  head  and  looked  at  us  dub- 
iously. However,  the  price  of  a  fare  intrigued 
him  and  off  we  went.  In  the  lobby  of  the  big 
hotel  where  he  landed  us  there  were  no  less 

[  32  ] 


w 

than  forty  persons,  men,  women  and  children, 
sleeping  on  settees,  chairs  and  other  makeshift 
devices.  When  I  approached  the  clerk  and  in 
my  broken  Spanish  asked  for  a  room  he 
shrugged  and  shook  his  head.  "No  huy  lugar !" 
(meaning  there  was  none  to  be  had).  I  insisted 
that  my  wife's  condition  was  such  that  she 
couldn't  sleep  out  on  the  sidewalk  in  the  rain, 
and  with  that  I  slipped  an  American  ten  dollar 
bill  into  his  hand.  The  effect  was  magical.  He 
asked  us  to  wait,  then  disappeared  for  a  few 
minutes.  At  length  he  returned,  and  with  a 
broad  smile  he  motioned  us  to  follow  him.  He 
led  us  up  one  flight  into  a  luxurious  steam- 
heated  apartment  furnished  with  draperies, 
tapestries,  paintings  and  all  modern  equipment. 
In  expressing  my  delight,  I  said,  "Muchos  gra- 
cios,  muchos  gracios,  Senor"  As  he  turned  to 
go  I  remarked  in  my  stumbling  Spanish,  "You 
are  a  model  of  blue-blooded  Spanish  hospital- 
ity." 

He  laughed.  Then,  in  perfectly  good  Ameri- 
can English,  he  said,  "Thank  you,  but,  like 
yourself,  I  happen  to  be  a  red-blooded  Ameri- 
can. The  owner  of  this  suite  is  out  of  the  city 
for  the  night." 

In  most  foreign  countries  American  tourists 
are  looked  on  as  "easy  picking,"  and  the  natives 

[  33  ] 


fleece  you  as  if  they  expected  never  to  see  you 
again. 

However,  since  Marguerite's  yen  for  migra- 
tion was  innate,  habitual  and  insatiable,  in 
keeping  my  promise  to  make  her  happy  I  trailed 
along  and  pretended  to  like  it.  I  don't  mean  by 
this  to  make  any  claim  to  martyrdom,  for  Mar- 
guerite's loving  comradeship  outweighed  all 
the  discomforts  of  travel.  A  peculiar  quirk  in 
her  nature  was,  that  while  she  was  always  tick- 
led to  get  back  home,  early  in  the  fall  her  old 
wanderlust  would  creep  over  her  again.  On  the 
long  ocean  voyages  her  happiness  was  at  its 
zenith.  She  used  to  say  that  her  greatest  am- 
bition was  to  own  a  big  transoceanic  steamer 
and  spend  her  winters  sailing  back  and  forth 
across  the  water.  One  of  the  outstanding  traits 
of  her  wonderful  nature  was  her  disposition 
always  to  share  her  joys  with  others.  She  ab- 
sorbed happiness  easily,  she  gave  it  out  gener- 
ously, and  it  came  back  to  her  like  the  prover- 
bial bread  cast  upon  the  waters.  If  her  winters 
were  given  to  pleasure-seeking  her  summers 
were  more  fruitfully  spent.  She  devoted  herself 
to  Red  Cross  work,  and  particularly  to  poor 
children.  At  her  suggestion  I  built  a  large  bun- 
galow on  our  farm  to  accommodate  twenty 
children.  She  furnished  it  with  all  the  neces- 
sary equipment  and  arranged  with  five  chari- 

[  34  ] 


table  organizations,  each  to  send  out  groups  of 
fifteen  to  twenty  children  for  a  two  weeks  sum- 
mer outing,  as  our  guests.  She  attended  to  sup- 
plying them  with  all  their  provisions  —  vege- 
tables, milk,  butter,  eggs,  cereals,  bread,  meat 
(three  times  a  week),  and  fish  on  Fridays.  She 
looked  after  their  comforts,  joined  in  their 
games,  sang  songs  with  them  and  gladdened 
their  hungry  hearts  as  if  they  were  her  own 
home  brood. 

Each  group  had  its  interesting  characters. 
Several  little  boys  used  to  hover  around  my 
farmer  at  milking  time,  staring  wide-eyed  at 
the  cows.  Many  of  them  had  never  seen  such  a 
critter  before.  Prior  to  going  to  the  charity 
home,  few  of  them  had  ever  slept  between 
sheets.  One  little  fellow,  almost  blind,  was  the 
most  cheerful,  talkative  one  in  his  group.  He 
was  so  happy  to  be  allowed  with  the  other  chil- 
dren, instead  of  being  sent  to  an  institution  for 
the  blind.  One  was  badly  crippled  as  a  result  of 
a  harsh  beating  at  the  hands  of  a  brutal, 
drunken  father.  A  little  bright-eyed  youngster 
who  had  lost  both  legs,  managed  to  propel  him- 
self by  his  arms  and  scamper  about  as  lively 
as  anyone  on  the  place.  I  was  pathetically  inter- 
ested one  day  in  hearing  some  little  crippled 
girls  in  the  group  from  the  New  England  Pea- 
body  Home,  all  laughing  and  chattering  hope- 

[35  ] 


fully  about  the  good  times  in  store  for  them 
when  they  grew  up  and  could  have  their  fill  of 
ice  cream  sodas  and  go  out  with  sweethearts  to 
dancing  parties,  movies  and  other  amusements. 
Never  a  word  of  complaint. 

At  the  end  of  each  two  weeks  session,  Mar- 
guerite invited  the  group  over  to  our  house  and 
treated  them  to  a  farewell  cake  and  ice  cream 
supper.  They  were  a  cheerful,  grateful  lot,  al- 
ways playing  games  and  singing  songs,  some 
of  which  they  composed  in  our  honor.  Mar- 
guerite even  gave  piano  lessons  to  some  of  the 
little  girls  who  showed  a  bent  for  music.  Year 
after  year  these  performances  were  repeated, 
and  thus  her  summers  passed  quickly,  happily 
and  usefully. 

And  withal,  Marguerite  never  slackened  her 
complete  devotion  and  attentiveness  to  every 
little  detail  contributing  to  my  welfare.  She  was 
a  fond  mother,  and  took  great  joy  and  pride  in 
our  handsome  boy.  She  declared  that  in  all  her 
girlhood  dreams  she  had  never  hoped  to  enjoy 
such  a  full  and  happy  life.  She  loved  life.  She 
also  loved  to  be  loved.  So  did  I,  for  that  matter. 
We  never  got  bored  with  each  other,  summer 
or  winter.  In  fact  we  never  had  much  time  for 
boredom.  Our  winters  were  a  perennial  honey- 
moon, and  our  summers  were  periods  of  re- 
cuperation. I  doubt  if  two  people  were  ever 

[  36  ] 


more  happily  mated.  We  settled  all  our  differ- 
ences by  compromise  and  peaceful  solution.  If 
she  wanted  to  go  to  Paris,  and  I  wanted  to  go 
to  Palm  Beach,  we  compromised  by  going  to 
Paris. 

But  as  all  good  things,  including  life  itself, 
must  eventually  come  to  an  end,  our  happy 
honeymoon  was  no  exception  to  that  unalter- 
able rule.  This  holiday  life  was  but  a  prelude  to 
a  heartrending  finale  which  lurked  not  far  in 
the  offing. 

When  our  country  entered  World  War  II 
our  boy  quit  Law  School  and  entered  the  Air 
Corps.  He  was  offered  a  desk  job  in  Washing- 
ton, but  he  preferred  to  get  into  action  where 
he  could  better  serve  our  cause.  He  began  his 
primary  training  in  Douglas,  Georgia,  and 
later  won  his  wings  as  a  lieutenant  in  another 
training  camp  in  the  South.  From  there  he  was 
transferred  to  Fort  Myers,  Florida,  as  an  in- 
structor-pilot. Marguerite  and  I  took  a  house 
in  Fort  Myers  and  spent  the  winter  with  him. 
He  was  later  sent  to  Savannah  as  a  test  pilot, 
and  from  there  to  Kellogg  Field  to  train  for 
overseas  service.  Meanwhile,  he  had  been  pro- 
moted to  a  captaincy  and  flew  a  B-26  Bomber 
to  England  where  he  spent  several  weeks  train- 
ing and  waiting  for  D-Day.  When  that  time 
finally  arrived  the  first  day  he  made  three  bomb- 

[  37] 


ing  missions  across  the  Channel  to  the  French 
coast,  and  returned  uninjured,  though  his  plane 
was  shot  full  of  holes  and  three  of  his  crew 
were  killed.  It  seemed  as  if  he  were  blessed  with 
a  charmed  life.  While  in  England  he  fell  in 
love  with  a  beautiful  girl  and  engaged  to  marry 
her  when  he  had  completed  the  required  num- 
ber of  sorties  entitling  him  to  an  extended  fur- 
lough. Later  he  was  transferred  to  France  and 
made  forty-odd  missions,  bombing  many  parts 
of  Germany.  Then  on  November  2ist,  1944, 
while  leading  a  formation  of  thirty-six  bombers 
(his  very  last  mission  before  receiving  his  fur- 
lough) he  was  shot  down  and  killed  over  a 
town  in  Germany.  With  one  exception  (the 
tail-gunner)  the  entire  crew  perished.  By  a  sin- 
gular decree  of  fate,  out  of  the  thirty-six 
planes,  his  leading  ship  was  the  only  one  that 
suffered  any  casualties. 

And  then  in  quick  succession  came  another 
and  more  terrible  heart-breaker.  We  were 
seated  at  the  fireside  in  a  New  York  apartment 
one  stormy  night  early  in  December,  while  the 
wind-driven  rain  and  sleet  pelted  noisily 
against  the  window  panes.  Three  days  after 
receiving  the  War  Department's  delayed  tele- 
gram, as  we  sat  trying  vainly  to  reconcile  our- 
selves to  this  awful  tragedy,  my  darling  Mar- 

[  38  ] 


guerite  reeled  from  her  chair  and  dropped 
dead  I 

For  a  few  moments  it  seemed  as  if  the  light 
of  my  life  had  suddenly  gone  out,  leaving  me 
blinded  and  stupefied.  I  had  been  so  long  ac- 
customed to  seeing  only  the  gaieties  of  life  that 
I  was  totally  unprepared  for  this  double- 
tragedy,  which  deprived  me  of  my  family  and 
left  me  to  face  life  alone. 

After  the  funeral,  bereft  of  my  normal 
senses,  I  wandered  aimlessly  about  like  a  vic- 
tim of  amnesia,  neither  knowing  nor  caring 
where  fate  led  me.  Finally  I  discovered  myself 
in  Palm  Beach,  but  I  found  no  surcease  of  sor- 
row there.  In  looking  about  over  the  throng  of 
merrymakers  at  the  Everglades  Club,  all  din- 
ing, laughing  and  dancing  with  carefree  aban- 
don, I  felt  like  a  discordant  note  in  a  gay  or- 
chestral ensemble.  And  so,  in  the  early  spring 
I  returned  to  Boston.  One  of  the  most  difficult 
problems  that  confronted  me  was  in  trying  to 
decide  whether  I  could  endure  going  to  the 
farm  and  face  the  things  that  Marguerite's  in- 
dustry had  created. 

It's  all  very  well  for  friends  to  say,  "Have 
courage,  be  brave,  keep  your  chin  up";  but 
when  your  underpinning  is  knocked  completely 
from  under  you  and  the  world  seems  to  have 
caved  in  from  all  sides  it's  easier  for  well-mean- 

[  39  ] 


ing  friends  to  advise  than  it  is  to  rise  and  re- 
adjust yourself. 

Early  in  May  following  Marguerite's  death 
I  made  up  my  mind  (what  little  of  it  there  was 
left)  that  I  might  as  well  face  the  inevitable 
and  go  out  to  the  farm.  After  some  thought  I 
cozened  myself  into  the  belief  that  it  might  be 
comforting  to  be  near  the  things  Marguerite 
had  loved.  But  on  entering  the  house  I  became 
aware  that  I  had  deceived  myself  into  a  false 
conclusion.  The  loneliness,  the  desolation  of  our 
once  cheerful  home,  but  now  destitute  of  every 
livable  feature !  It  would  have  been  much  easier 
for  me  if  the  house  with  all  its  furnishings  had 
burned  to  the  ground. 

Nobody  likes  a  gloom-bird.  Most  people  have 
enough  troubles  and  sorrows  of  their  own, 
without  listening  to  the  wails  of  others.  And 
yet  there  are  many,  including  myself,  who  like 
to  hear  how  others  feel  and  act  under  great 
pressure.  Therefore  in  writing  a  true  life  his- 
tory—  as  in  the  present  case  —  both  sides  of 
the  picture  ought  to  be  shown,  revealing  the 
alternate  comedy  and  tragedy  of  life,  and  the 
resultant  emotions.  It  would  be  a  monotonous, 
undramatic  life  that  has  no  contrasting  emo- 
tions —  all  joy  and  no  sadness.  In  tragedy  and 
grief  lies  the  drama  of  real  life,  of  which  we 
find  ample  proof  in  the  works  of  the  old  Greek 

[40] 


dramatists.  Also  in  Grand  Opera.  After  all  its 
tender  love  scenes  and  inspiring  music  it  has 
to  end  in  tragedy.  And  thus,  because  it  pictures 
the  realities  of  life  it  will  always  enchant  wher- 
ever normal  life  exists.  One  of  the  most  pa- 
thetic, yet  appealing  scenes  in  all  Grand  Opera 
is  the  mad  scene  in  Donizetti's  "Lucia  di  Lam- 
mermoor."  It  gives  me  an  aching  heart  every 
time  I  hear  that  agonizing,  grief-revealing 
aria ;  and  yet  it's  my  favorite  operatic  scene.  In 
a  recent  performance  where  Miss  Munsell  ren- 
dered this  difficult  aria  more  feelingly  than  I 
had  ever  heard  it,  it  affected  me  so  visibly  that 
I  felt  ashamed  of  my  weakness.  But  my  em- 
barrassment was  somewhat  mitigated  in  ob- 
serving that  the  woman  sitting  next  was  no  less 
affected.  She  turned  to  me  with  sympathizing 
eyes  and  tearful  sniffles.  At  the  conclusion  of 
the  aria  she  took  out  her  compact,  and  while 
she  was  powdering  her  nose  she  remarked  to 
her  escort,  "That  song  always  gets  my  goat!" 

Tragedy  and  sorrow  may  lie  dormant  for  a 
while,  but  sooner  or  later  they  will  crop  up  in 
one  form  or  another  to  torment  most  of  us. 
Contact  with  one  or  the  other,  or  both,  is  al- 
most unescapable.  In  other  words,  there's  no 
such  thing  as  escaping  reality,  or  running  away 
from  a  grief-stricken  heart. 

A  famous  philosopher  once  said  that  a  writer 

[4'  ] 


who  descants  on  sorrowful  topics  makes  a  sorry 
appeal  to  his  readers.  He  may  have  enjoyed  a 
singular  life,  but  he  might  have  added,  per  con- 
tra, that  happiness,  smugness  and  a  devil-may- 
care  attitude,  with  no  attendant  sorrow,  frus- 
tration or  mesalliance  make  unsavory  story- 
book reading,  since  these  elements  are  as  com- 
mon in  life,  and  as  essential  to  one's  enjoyment 
of  a  true  story,  as  seasoning  is  needful  in  food. 
Therefore,  in  realistic  narrative  it  is  important 
to  show  the  usual  human  reactions  to  sorrow 
and  let  the  reader  discover  for  himself  whether 
or  not  he's  getting  a  palatable  ration ;  or  if  per- 
chance there  is  anything  reminiscent  of  his  own 
experience.  There  is  nothing  that  brings  you 
more  closely  in  sympathy  with  an  author  than 
to  find  him  (or  her)  voicing  your  own  senti- 
ments and  describing  memorable  episodes  and 
yearnings  in  your  own  life.  We  frequently  read 
passages  that  almost  provoke  a  suspicion  that 
the  other  fellow  is  plagiarizing  our  own  private 
ideas;  but  after  all,  most  every  idea  and  hap- 
penstance in  life  has  been  surmised,  experienced 
or  written  about  by  someone  or  other.  This  is 
especially  true  of  tragedy,  sorrow  and  pain. 

The  first  part  of  my  story  was  easy  and 
pleasant  to  write;  but  the  climax  is  a  painful 
task.  I  hope  it  will  be  less  painful  to  read  than 
it  is  to  write.  It's  almost  impossible  to  unbosom 

[42  ] 


one's  personal  sorrows  to  strangers  without  be- 
ing accused  of  lacking  in  mental  stamina;  or 
even  worse,  indulging  in  self-pity.  Therefore 
I  shall  refrain  from  trying  to  describe  my  feel- 
ings on  entering  the  home  that  seemed  more 
like  an  empty  mausoleum  than  a  refuge  for  the 
living.  Perhaps  my  reactions  can  better  be  im- 
agined than  described.  At  least  those  who  have 
suffered  a  similar  fate  will  need  no  detailed  re- 
hearsal. 

I  am  not  writing  this  story  to  parade  my  for- 
mer happiness  or  my  present  grief.  I  am  writ- 
ing it  as  a  loving  tribute  to  one  of  the  dearest 
mates  with  which  God  ever  blessed  mortal  man. 
In  doing  so  I  regret  the  necessity  of  mingling 
sadness  with  gladness. 

And  reverting  to  our  boy  I  quote  the  follow- 
ing excerpt  from  a  letter  I  received  from  Major 
General  Edward  F.  Witsell :  "I  have  the  honor 
to  inform  you  that,  by  direction  of  the  Presi- 
dent, the  Distinguished  Flying  Cross,  the  Air 
Medal,  one  Silver  and  three  Bronze  Oak-leaf 
Clusters,  representing  eight  additional  awards 
of  the  Air  Medal,  have  been  posthumously 
awarded  to  your  son.  The  citations  are  as  fol- 
lows: 

DISTINGUISHED  FLYING  CROSS 

For  extraordinary  achievement  while  partici- 
pating in  aerial  flight  on  13  June,  1944.  As  lead 

[43  ] 


pilot  of  a  formation  of  B-26  type  aircraft,  your 
son  demonstrated  outstanding  courage  and 
ability  when  he  led  his  formation  on  successive 
bomb  runs  while  attacking  a  heavily  defended 
enemy  installation.  When  his  bombardier  was 
unable  to  pick  out  the  assigned  target  because 
of  the  intense  and  accurate  anti-aircraft  fire 
encountered  on  the  first  run,  your  son,  display- 
ing great  courage  and  fortitude,  continued  on 
to  make  a  second  bombing  run  enabling  the 
bombardier  to  locate  the  target  and  bomb  it 
with  telling  effect.  Executing  violent  evasive 
action  he  then  led  the  formation  out  of  the  dan- 
ger area  and  safely  back  to  base." 

I  also  received  half  a  dozen  medals  and  cita- 
tions, including  a  glowing  tribute  signed  by 
the  President.  All  of  which  was  gratifying  in  a 
way,  but  it  didn't  bring  back  my  boy,  and  it 
didn't  bring  back  my  lovely  Marguerite  who 
died  from  the  shock  of  losing  him.  Her  joking 
remark,  at  the  time  of  our  engagement,  that 
thirty  years  was  as  long  as  she  cared  to  live 
was  strangely  prophetic.  She  lived  only  thirty 
years  from  the  date  of  that  remark. 

I  spent  the  summer  at  the  farm,  because  I 
knew  of  no  other  place  where  I  could  have  the 
bodily  comforts  to  which  I  had  been  accus- 
tomed. I  never  liked  being  anywhere  alone ;  and 
the  idea  of  traveling  alone  was  unthinkable. 

[44] 


Where  could  I  go  ?  What  could  I  do  ?  I  couldn't 
bear  to  eat  alone  in  the  big  dining  room  with 
Marguerite's  empty  place  before  me,  so  I  had 
my  meals  served  in  the  kitchen,  where  at  least 
there  was  some  companionship. 

No  one  who  has  not  been  pampered,  humored 
and  spoiled,  as  I  had  been  for  nearly  thirty 
years,  can  be  expected  to  imagine  what  the  sud- 
den loss  of  an  adorable  helpmate  and  a  promis- 
ing son  means  to  one  well  advanced  in  years.  In 
losing  Marguerite  I  learned  there  is  apt  to  be 
a  disadvantage  in  having  a  ministering  angel 
attend  to  all  your  little  needs  and  desires.  It 
promotes  a  sort  of  childlike  dependence.  (I 
know  a  married  man  who,  perhaps  for  this 
reason,  prefers  to  wait  on  himself. )  Then  when 
the  good  angel  is  gone  and  you  are  thrown  back 
on  your  own  resources  you  encounter  many 
duties  and  objects  reminiscent  of  your  beloved. 
Preceding  services,  pastimes  and  acts  of  devo- 
tion loom  up  in  their  absence  as  daily  reminders 
of  your  loss.  For  example,  I  never  insert  the 
cuff-links  in  my  sleeves,  or  select  a  shirt  or  a 
tie  to  put  on,  or  pack  a  bag  to  go  anywhere, 
without  missing  the  one  who  always  performed 
these  services  for  me.  I  never  look  at  the  card 
table  or  the  backgammon  board  without  being 
reminded  of  the  one  with  whom  I  spent  happy 
hours  playing  contract  bridge,  gin  rummy  and 

[45  ] 


backgammon.  Also  I  recall  that  whenever  I  had 
to  get  dressed  for  some  special  occasion,  Mar- 
guerite would  always  lay  out  my  complete  at- 
tire. Once  she  said  to  me,  "I'm  proud  of  my  hus- 
band and  want  him  always  to  be  well  groomed." 
All  such  things  are  hard  to  forget.  I  wonder 
how  many  others  feel  the  same  way. 

In  daytime  I  could  busy  myself  about  the 
place,  working  in  the  garden  and  the  orchard, 
but  at  night  it  was  gloomy  enough,  alone  with 
my  servants  in  that  big  eighteen  room  house 
with  all  its  memories  —  where  everything  be- 
spoke better  days.  The  living  room  walls 
seemed  to  close  me  in  like  the  bars  of  a  lonely 
prison  cell.  There  was  more  sadness  than  cheer 
in  such  mementos  as  window  draperies,  lamp- 
shades, sofa  cushions,  knicknacks  and  other  ac- 
cessories, all  conceived  and  arranged  by  my 
darling's  industry  and  devotion.  There  is  no 
pain  more  distressing  than  a  lonely  bereaved 
heart.  Her  image,  in  thought,  was  everywhere 
about  the  house  among  the  objects  she  created 
and  loved.  In  the  music  room  her  rosewood 
Steinway  Grand  piano  was  shrouded  and  si- 
lent. It  looked  as  lonesome  as  I  felt,  in  the  ab- 
sence of  its  loving  performer.  I  lifted  the  cover 
and  struck  a  few  chords  just  to  assure  it  that 
it  was  not  entirely  alone.  If  I  entered  her  dress- 
ing room,  or  her  bedchamber,  or  wherever  I 

[46 1 


went,  a  ghostly  voice  seemed  to  whisper,  "Mar- 
guerite is  not  here!  Marguerite  has  gone 
away!"  It  was  weird,  fantastic,  unbelievable. 

One  rainy  night,  in  a  sort  of  bewildering 
daze  I  tiptoed  into  her  bedchamber,  hoping  it 
had  all  been  a  ghastly  dream,  and  I'd  find  her 
cuddled  up,  asleep.  It  was  dark.  For  a  moment 
I  stood  at  the  bedside,  listening.  It  seemed  as  if 
I  could  hear  her  breathing ;  then  I  reached  over 
and  touched  the  covers  to  see  if  she  were  really 
there.  But  alas!  the  bed  was  empty!  My  ears 
had  deceived  me.  She  had  gone  —  gone  for- 
ever! I  went  out  and  quietly  closed  the  door. 
After  that  I  never  opened  it. 

Although  it's  a  sad  mistake  to  immure  one- 
self, I  was  in  no  fit  condition  to  entertain  any 
of  my  friends.  Whenever  they  called  it  opened 
up  memories  of  the  dinner  parties  and  many 
other  happy  events  of  bygone  days.  It  was  like 
ripping  open  a  wound  that  refused  to  heal.  At 
night  if  I  tried  to  read,  my  mind  was  elsewhere 
and  nothing  interested  me.  If  I  tried  to  write, 
my  brain  refused  to  function.  If  I  turned  on 
the  radio,  like  as  not  I'd  be  greeted  by  a  dole- 
ful songster  bellowing  some  mournful  dirge, 
such  as  "All  Alonel"  And  one  night  they  tor- 
tured me  with  John  McCormack's  famous  song, 
"I  Hear  You  Calling  Me,  And  On  Your  Grave 
The  Mossy  Grass  Is  Green."  These  words, 

[  47  ] 


which  I  had  always  thought  beautifully  tender 
and  sentimental,  now  gave  me  an  acute  mem- 
ory pang  like  a  stab  in  the  heart.  Then  some 
zealous  commentator  would  rave  on  and  on  ex- 
tolling the  super-duper  virtues  of  some  soap 
powder,  toothpaste,  cigarette,  hand  lotion,  hair 
tonic,  or  what  not  —  a  dozen  or  more  wares  in 
which  I  hadn't  the  slightest  interest.  After  a 
boring  hour  or  so  I'd  turn  off  the  darn  thing 
and  wander  up  to  my  lonely  bed. 

It  isn't  a  cheerful  experience  to  contemplate ; 
it  isn't  a  happy  theme  to  write  about,  but  it's 
life  —  hard,  gruesome,  realistic  life  —  the  aft- 
ermath of  a  devastating  war  in  which  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  have  lost  their  loved 
ones,  their  homes,  their  fortunes,  and  even  the 
courage  to  live. 

One  night  I  went  in  to  Boston  to  see  a  play 
(advertised  as  a  comedy),  hoping  to  get  some 
temporary  release  from  my  thoughts.  In  the 
very  first  act  the  character  after  whom  the  play 
was  named  died  suddenly  of  heart  failure,  and 
was  carried  off  stage  into  an  adjoining  room. 
I  stayed  on,  wondering  if  he  had  only  fainted 
and  would  soon  recover  so  they  could  go  on 
with  the  play,  but  he  never  did  recover  —  and 
during  the  ensuing  performance  I  almost  en- 
vied him.  As  the  play  continued,  the  grief- 
stricken  actors  went  about,  mopping  their  eyes 

[48  ] 


and  telling  one  another  what  a  swell  guy  he  had 
been.  One  of  them  shouted,  "What  are  we  all 
blubbering  about?  Ain't  he  a  lot  happier  than 
we  are?"  It  struck  me  there  was  some  logic  in 
that.  It  looked  as  if  the  play  had  fallen  to  pieces, 
owing  to  the  death  of  the  leading  man,  and 
each  player  felt  free  to  abandon  the  script  and 
babble  whatever  he  (or  she)  thought  might 
keep  the  audience  in  their  seats.  Several  visit- 
ing friends  and  relatives  came  in,  and  bowing 
their  heads  reverently  they  wiped  their  tearful 
eyes  as  they  passed  into  the  adjoining  room  to 
mourn  over  the  corpse.  .  .  .  And  the  play  was 
ment  to  be  funny!!  My  flickering  sense  of  hu- 
mor compelled  me  to  agree  with  the  author. 

I  tried  playing  golf,  but  I  was  not  up  to  my 
old  time  form,  and  the  game  had  lost  its  zest. 
I  tried  to  console  myself  with  the  thought  that 
after  all,  a  man  who  has  enjoyed  so  many  years 
of  uninterrupted  happiness  with  a  God-given 
mate  has  but  little  cause  to  complain  against 
fate;  but  that  didn't  help  much,  either. 

I  sold  the  farm  and  auctioned  off  the  furnish- 
ings, all  except  Marguerite's  beautiful  Stein- 
way  Grand  piano.  I  couldn't  permit  that  to  go 
into  the  hands  of  strangers.  Finally,  I  pen- 
sioned two  servants  who  had  served  me  faith- 
fully all  through  my  married  life.  A  friend 
suggested  that  I  buy  a  smaller  place  with  fur- 

[49] 


nishings  that  didn't  revive  sad  memories.  "No," 
I  said,  "I'm  all  through  with  such  life.  A 
drowning  man  who  has  been  dragged  out  of 
the  river  would  be  foolish  to  plunge  back  in 
again." 

Incidentally,  anyone  who  imagines  that  the 
fates  have  treated  him  too  harshly  should  visit 
the  New  England  Peabody  Home  for  Crippled 
Children,  Newton,  Mass.,  and  see  the  seventy 
or  so  little  unfortunates,  many  of  them  ban- 
daged and  strapped  on  cushioned  frames,  hope- 
lessly maimed  for  life ;  and  yet  the  most  cheer- 
ful, the  most  beautiful,  smiling,  bright-eyed 
group  of  youngsters  I  have  ever  seen  anywhere 
in  the  world.  There  is  such  a  helpful,  cheery 
atmosphere  in  this  wonderful  institution  that 
the  visitor  feels  inspired  rather  than  depressed. 
If  you  smile  and  touch  the  cheek  of  one  of  these 
bandaged  and  bestrapped  darlings  it  will  in- 
stantly return  your  smile  and  eagerly  clutch 
your  hand.  It  makes  one  ashamed  to  complain. 
It  also  reminds  one  that  there  is  a  great  and 
useful  mission  in  life,  even  for  those  who  have 
lost  their  homes  and  their  loved  ones. 

Again,  if  anyone  thinks  he  is  the  victim  of 
Lady  Fortune's  frowning  disfavor  he  should 
read  Anne  Morrow  Lindbergh's  tremendously 
interesting  article  on  Edward  Sheldon  in  the 
January,  1947,  issue  of  the  Reader's  Digest, 

[  So] 


entitled  "The  Most  Unforgettable  Character 
I've  Met."  Also  the  most  extraordinary  exam- 
ple of  great  genius,  great  suffering  and  great 
fortitude  that  /  have  ever  known.  This  re- 
minded me  that  my  wife,  a  few  years  younger 
than  Edward  Sheldon,  was  his  dinner  partner 
at  a  banquet  given  in  his  honor  after  the  Broad- 
way success  of  his  play  written  while  he  was  a 
student  at  Harvard.  Many  years  later  when 
Marguerite  learned  that  he  was  stricken  and 
helplessly  bedridden  with  arthritis  and  total 
blindness  she  called  on  him,  giving  only  her 
married  name.  She  said,  "I  don't  suppose  you 
remember  me,  Mr.  Sheldon." 

He  put  out  his  hand,  which  she  took  and  held 
for  a  moment,  while  he  seemed  to  meditate.  "In- 
deed I  do,"  he  said,  calling  her  by  her  maiden 
name. 

Bereavement  is  sometimes  a  reminder  of  neg- 
lected duty.  It  occasionally  happens  that  a  great 
sorrow  will  cause  one  to  realize  that  he  has 
been  somewhat  remiss  in  discharging  certain 
duties  incumbent  on  those  with  ample  means. 
And  so  it  happened  to  me.  After  nursing  my 
grief  for  a  while  it  occurred  to  me  that  for 
nearly  thirty  years  I  had  lived  a  more  or  less 
selfish  life  in  which  my  chief  concern  was  the 
comfort  and  happiness  of  myself  and  my  little 
family.  Since  God  had  blessed  me  abundantly 

[  Si  ] 


He  may  have  intended  I  sould  impart  to  others 
who  were  less  fortunate  a  more  generous  share 
of  the  blessings  He  had  bestowed  on  me ;  so  per- 
haps He  took  this  means  of  reminding  me  that 
I  had  been  a  bit  derelict  in  my  duties.  And  from 
this  thought  I  gained  courage  to  carry  on  and 
try  to  make  up  for  my  delinquency  in  former 
years.  I  feel  sure  that  Marguerite's  heavenly 
spirit  will  support  me  in  this  endeavor,  and  I 
look  forward,  hopefully,  to  a  happy  union  with 
her  in  a  less  troubled  sphere.  Meantime,  I  offer 
her  spirit  this  greeting :  — 

My  Marguerite,  I  love  your  name. 

I  miss  you,  dear,  wherever  I  am; 

But  since  you're  free  from  grief  and  pain 

I  would  not  call  you  back  again. 


1   I '  Jl7  i  I  U(7 


